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Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
About Laura Shamp
Laura M. Shamp is a founding partner of Shamp Silk. She played collegiate basketball in the Final Four before graduating with honors from Harvard Law School in 1988. After law school, she served as a federal law clerk for United States District Court Judge Robert H. Hall. Over more than two decades of litigation, she has obtained multi million dollar verdicts in difficult jurisdictions, including an eleven million dollar jury verdict against Philip Morris USA.
She is consistently recognized as one of Georgia's Super Lawyers. Her reported appellate cases have helped shape Georgia law on medical malpractice and the use of expert witness testimony, including Hankla v. Postell (Georgia Supreme Court, 2013), EHCA Cartersville v. Turner (Georgia Supreme Court, 2006), Lee v. Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital (Georgia Court of Appeals, 2009), and Houston v. Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital (Georgia Court of Appeals, 2009). She chairs the Georgia Trial Lawyers Amicus Committee, which submits friend of the court briefs to the Georgia Supreme Court and Georgia Court of Appeals on issues affecting the civil justice system. In 2004 she returned to Harvard to study patient safety and medical errors under Don Berwick and Lucian Leape, and in 2005 she earned a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Before founding Shamp Silk, she ran a successful solo practice for more than fifteen years. Prior to that she practiced for four years at Doffermyre, Shields, Canfield, Knowles and Devine, and she began her career as a general civil litigator at Sutherland Asbill and Brennan. She is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the State of Georgia, as well as all other trial and appellate courts in the State of Georgia.
Proven verdicts and settlements
A Fulton County State Court jury awarded $75 million to Jonathan Buckelew, who suffered a brain stem stroke after a chiropractic neck adjustment at age 32 and was left with locked-in syndrome when an emergency physician and a radiologist failed to diagnose it for a full day. The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in March 2025.
A Bibb County jury awarded $33,465,176 in July 2024 after finding that physicians affiliated with an OB-GYN practice in Macon, Georgia failed to diagnose and treat a bowel perforation that occurred during April Clark's May 2019 ovarian cyst surgery, a failure the family said led to her death that June. The trial court later cut the wrongful death portion of the verdict from $29,250,000 to $350,000 under Georgia's medical malpractice damages cap. On June 16, 2026, the Georgia Supreme Court vacated that reduction, holding the cap cannot apply to a verdict that includes pain and suffering damages protected by the state's constitutional right to a jury trial, which restored the verdict to its full $33,465,176. The Court also sent the case back to the trial court to decide one argument from the defendants' motion for a new trial that the trial court had never reached, so the case is not over.
A Duval County, Florida jury awarded longtime smoker Elaine Jordan $11 million in August 2015, finding that Philip Morris USA concealed the dangers and addictive nature of cigarettes and that the resulting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease led to her two lung transplants and a later kidney transplant. The verdict included $7,795,000 in compensatory damages and $3,205,000 in punitive damages. Jurors also found Philip Morris 60 percent at fault and Jordan 40 percent at fault. Philip Morris appealed and lost at every stage: Florida's First District Court of Appeal affirmed in April 2018, the United States Supreme Court denied review in February 2019, and a later appeal of the attorney fee award Jordan won failed as well. The $11 million stands as rendered in 2015.
A Cobb County, Georgia jury awarded $10.5 million in February 2023 after an on-call obstetrician discharged Dinesha Robinson from the emergency room despite lab results showing signs of infection during a high-risk twin pregnancy. The untreated infection spread and led to the death of the family's daughter shortly after birth and the stillbirth of her twin brother. The verdict split evenly into two $5.25 million wrongful death awards, one per child. The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the amount as supported by the evidence in July 2025 but vacated the trial court's ruling on the state's damages cap and sent that question back for further proceedings.
A Cobb County, Georgia jury awarded $10.5 million in February 2023 after an on-call obstetrician discharged Dinesha Robinson from the emergency room despite lab results showing signs of infection during a high-risk twin pregnancy. The untreated infection spread and led to the stillbirth of the family's son and the death of his twin sister shortly after birth. The verdict split evenly into two $5.25 million wrongful death awards, one per child. The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the amount as supported by the evidence in July 2025 but vacated the trial court's ruling on the state's damages cap and sent that question back for further proceedings.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
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Proven verdicts and settlements from other Atlanta firms
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.